IF I CAN'T HAVE YOU (The Thorntons #3)

Chapter 1-2

Mark watched Abby leave, enjoying the rounded curve of her ass.

When she shut the door behind her, he let out a breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding. He hadn't planned on asking Abby to be his—what? Fake girlfriend? Maid? Housekeeper? Friend? But when she'd come into this room, he had wanted her.

You're a special kind of stupid, aren't you? he thought.

So instead of asking Abby out like a normal man, he'd cajoled her into working for him so he'd keep his mouth shut about her little lie.

He wouldn't have told her mother about her fabrication anyway, but Abby didn't know that. And when the idea had sprung upon him, he hadn't been able to let it go.

Now, though, he was going to have to contend with Abby Davison and her round ass hanging around his ranch. An ass he was not allowed to touch.

Definitely a special kind of stupid.

He drove back to his ranch, wondering what the hell he was going to do about this predicament. A predicament that was his own damn fault. Maybe he should tell Abby the deal was off. But then he wouldn't see her again, would he?

And he wanted to see her again.

He slammed his truck door shut when he arrived home. Inhaling the fresh air—the smell of grass, horses, and hay—his erratic heartbeat slowed some.

He may have made a deal with the devil, but he'd done it. At the very least, it would be nice to have someone other than Charlie around to talk to.

"I told you that you broke it," Charlie said as he came out of the barn toward Mark. Charlie was in his forties, a grizzled man with tufts of gray hair sprouting from his head like weeds. He had worked on farms his entire life and knew them better than he knew anything else. When Mark had gotten Charlie to agree to work with him, Mark had known he'd been lucky.

Charlie was hardly a conversationalist, though. He was rather like Mark himself; both men preferred silence over idle chatter and could go the entire day without saying more than ten words to each other.

Mark lifted his broken arm. "You were right," he said. "Do I owe you something for being right?"

Charlie laughed, a gruff sound like rocks tumbling down a ravine. "Naw, but good thing you didn't make it worse, still working after you'd broken it. Damn stupid thing to do, you know."

Mark almost laughed. If Charlie knew about his latest stupid thing...

"A woman's coming Saturday to help me out," Mark said. He didn't wait to see Charlie's reaction.

"A woman? Who? Why? Did you break your brain, too?" Charlie guffawed at that.

"No, but I can't do everything with a broken arm." Liar, he thought to himself. He could manage just fine without additional help, but Abby didn't know that, did she? "She's going to help around the house."

"Huh. So a maid."

Mark glared at Charlie over his shoulder. "She's not a maid."

"Okay then. A housekeeper." Charlie shrugged. "As long as she doesn't get in the way around here, or try to make us eat kale chips. What is it with women and kale, huh?"

"You're definitely asking the wrong man about how women think," was Mark's wry reply.